


But

by ThoughtfulConstellations



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel (Movies), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 07:05:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3758983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtfulConstellations/pseuds/ThoughtfulConstellations
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint doesn’t know what happens.  One minute he’s kissing Natasha, and her young, wild hands are reaching into his boxers, and the next minute he’s watching her stare at Banner with large, curious eyes.  He doesn’t know how he got from one place to the next, but he wonders how it happened.  How did he get old?  How did he get here?  How is Natasha looking at another man the same way she used to look at him?  Clint has questions, but he doesn’t have answers.  But that’s the thing—it’s always been that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But

**Author's Note:**

> So I was inspired by this graphic by bartohn on Tumblr: http://bartons.co.vu/post/116518779440/happy-birthday-lauren
> 
> The lines of the graphic were particularly what got my mind going: "I love does not mean I won't ever leave you," and then this thing was born. So I wrote a fic of my interpretation of how the progression from Clintnat to Brucenat happened. Granted, I don't think it'll be like this at all in Age of Ultron, but I thought it was an interesting dynamic to play with. The timeline is definitely screwy, but whatever.
> 
> Any feedback is appreciated! =)
> 
> NOTE: This is still a Clintnat fic. I still ship Clintnat. Any rude reviews attacking me for "jumping ship" or "betraying you" will be deleted!

Clint doesn’t know what happens.  One minute he’s kissing Natasha, and her young, wild hands are reaching into his boxers, and the next minute he’s watching her stare at Banner with large, curious eyes.  He doesn’t know how he got from one place to the next, but he wonders how it happened. How did he get old? How did he get here? How is Natasha looking at another man the same way she used to look at him?  Clint has questions, but he doesn’t have answers.  But that’s the thing—it’s always been that way.

* * *

 The first time he kisses Natasha, it’s practice for a mission. They go about the kiss professionally, casually, as if it isn’t a big deal.  She’s been a part of SHIELD for a while, and even though he doesn’t necessarily trust her, he doesn’t _dis_ trust her.  He’s not sure he can work a mission with someone he doesn’t trust all the way, especially after she tried to kill him at first, but she’s good now.  She doesn’t want to be a part of the KGB anymore.  He might not trust her, but he believes her.

So when she kisses him and puts her hands on his face, Clint lets her. The attraction isn’t an instant thing—he’d hate himself if it were—but she’s a good kisser, and he likes good kissers.  She smiles up at him when she pulls away, and she even makes a joke about how she’s glad he brushed his teeth.  He jokes back with her and says she isn’t so bad herself.  They don’t trust each other, but they can work together.

“Kissed a lot of girls?” she asks.

“Maybe,” he teases, smiling at her. 

“I can tell.”

“Can you?”

“Mmhmm.”

Natasha’s red hair is long and wavy, and she tucks a piece of it back behind her ear.  For just a second, Clint is reminded of how young she is, of how young he is, too. They’re both so young and so wrapped up in their lives and who they are.  He’s who he’s always been—a washed up circus kid that the military got a hold of when he had no one else left in the world.  A kid with good aim and all the patience in the universe. He doesn’t know much about who Natasha is, but he knows that she’s every bit as deadly as one of the tips of his arrows.

Strangely, he likes that.  He doesn’t trust it yet, but as he watches her smile and tuck her hair back behind her ear, he decides that he has the potential to.  He was sent to kill her, but he didn’t, and while others might find that dynamic strange and unnatural, he likes it.  He really does.

They kiss a lot on that mission.  Clint finds that it comes natural to him—kissing her, that is. It’s natural for his lips to find hers, for them to figure out how to breathe when there’s no air. They get really good at kissing each other, and Clint lets himself admit that he likes that. He doesn’t know how Natasha feels, but then again, that’s nothing new.  He never really knows how Natasha feels.  She’s better about not looking so stone-faced whenever she’s just sitting still. Back when she first joined up with SHIELD, she looked so blank and empty all the time, as if she were an empty sheet of paper.  She looked like she was waiting for someone to write on her, and until then, she would remain blank. When Clint looks at her now, he doesn’t get that same feeling.  Not as much. She still has that face sometimes, but she doesn’t wear it as frequently, which is good.  He likes seeing her with emotion on her face—he likes watching to see what makes her happy.

Kissing comes naturally to them, and they’re both great at it. They manage to joke and laugh about it the rest of the mission, but that’s it.  Clint goes to sleep alone in his bed, and he knows Natasha’s alone in hers.  Their first night back in the States, Clint thinks about how she had his back on that mission. He didn’t question her loyalty once, and he thinks that that’s a good sign.  Maybe it means she really can be trusted.  Maybe.

After the success of that first mission, they’re paired together a lot. Clint supposes that it makes sense. They work strangely well together, countering each other and complimenting the other with how they work. In some ways, they’re so different, and yet in others, they’re the same.  Clint doesn’t know what it is about the both of them, but he likes working with her.  Natasha doesn’t pry into his past, and he doesn’t pry into hers, even though they both know what her past is like, what colors paint the walls.

STRIKE Team: Delta quickly gets a name for itself, but that doesn’t surprise Clint.  They’re both amazing at what they do—it would only make sense that they’re twice as amazing together. Sometimes he has trouble remembering a time when he didn’t trust Natasha.  Never once does she make him feel like he can’t trust her, and he finds comfort in that feeling.

* * *

 The first time they sleep together is after Natasha’s nearly killed in a firefight.  The mistake is more hers than his, but Clint beats himself up over it.  He tries not to worry out loud too much because she’ll get frustrated and accuse him of being a mother hen.  Sometimes she does that.  Sometimes she gets cagey and thinks he’s telling her she can’t protect herself, but that’s not why he gets worried.  He’s worried because he’s _worried_ —because he genuinely doesn’t want anything bad to happen to her. Besides, she’s his partner. He’d never forgive himself if something happened to his partner.

“There’s barely a scratch on me,” she says. “You got hurt worse than I did.”

“This is true,” he agrees, “but I didn’t have a close scare.”

“It’s fine, Barton.”

“Alright.”

“Don’t give me that look.”

“I’m not giving you any look.  Jesus.”

Natasha patches him up, and even though she’s frustrated with him, she’s gentle. She doesn’t waver—she holds steady. Clint trusts her to take care of him, and she does.  Eventually, she has him put somewhat back together, but she doesn’t move away from him. He’s sitting on the closed lid of the toilet in the bathroom, and she’s standing above him.  Silently, he waits for her to move, but she doesn’t. When she kisses him, she’s not practicing for anything or trying to convince a bunch of staring CEOs she’s in love with him.  She kisses him because he wants to.

Clint tries to ask her if this is what she wants, but she nods without letting him get the words out.  They wind up having sex right there in the bathroom, Natasha on his lap with her hair thrown back over her shoulders, Clint with his face buried in her neck. She rides him without setting any real pace, but Clint doesn’t mind—he likes that he can’t predict what she’s going to do next.  He just lets her take him where she will.

Afterwards, she’s tender and quiet with him, but she doesn’t want to talk about it. Clint wants to ask why, but he bites the question back and lets her sleep on his side of the bed that night.

From that moment on, they have sex regularly.  They have sex before missions, after mission, on missions, and in between missions.  Just like in the field, they work well together in bed.  Clint learns what Natasha likes, and she learns what he likes. It’s a give and take that they both know professionally; all they do now is transfer it into their lives personally.  It’s simple, really. It’s very simple.

Clint doesn’t know why this surprises him, but when they start spending time together away from SHIELD, he’s definitely surprised.  He doesn’t mind it because for the first time, he isn’t really alone. Natasha’s either at his apartment, or he’s at hers, and they’re doing this thing they’re really great at. What more could he want?

They sleep together for years.  The arrangement is nice, and they never think too much of it. At least they try not to. When Clint’s in Natasha’s bed, he feels something stirring inside his chest that he’s never expected. He doesn’t know what to make of it, so he tries not to make anything at all of any of it.  He just goes with it and tells his mind not to ask questions. _Don’t ask questions_ , he thinks.  _Don’t ruin whatever this is because you can’t keep your damn mind quiet._

Clint slowly comes to rely on Natasha, and whether he knows it or not, she relies on him.  They spend almost all of their time together.  Even holidays. Clint spends holidays with her. He thinks maybe that should be a sign that something more is going on, but again, he stops his mind from asking questions.  He’s got to. He needs to.  But when he looks at Natasha and sees her cheeks pink from laughing at the latest prank he’s played on a junior agent, he gets so many questions in his head.  When he looks at her and watches her face grow tired whenever she’s had a long day, he wants to ask her everything he’s ever wanted to know about her.

* * *

 The first time he tells her he loves her, he asks her.

“Nat, can you pass me those forks?”

“Here you go.” She hands them to him, and he takes them.

“Thanks.” He squints a little bit. “Shit, I thought I cleaned these.”

“You’re kind of shit at cleaning dishes.”

“Hmm. You’re right.” He crosses back to the sink to wash them, and this time he makes sure he scrubs them a little harder. “You get General Tso’s again?”

“Yeah, that’s my favorite right now,” Natasha answers. “I got chicken with cashews too much, so I’m a little burned out.”

“I don’t think I can order anything but Szechuan.”

“Doesn’t surprise me, Barton.” Reaching into the bag of takeout, she smiles and pulls out a handful of plastic forks.  She closes one eye, and then she launches one at Clint. It hits him a little far to the left, but it still hits him.  Clint narrows his eyes, and he turns to face her.

“Did you just…hit me with a plastic fork?”

She shrugs. “Might as well use them.  Don’t think your real forks are going to be clean anytime soon.”

Clint looks at the plastic wrapped fork as it lies on the floor of his kitchen. His blue eyes are wide, and he looks like he can’t believe that that really happened.  When he looks back up at Natasha, she bursts out laughing. She laughs so hard she throws her head back and closes her eyes.  As Clint watches her, he realizes that she never would have laughed like this all those years ago when she’d once been her former self, a blank sheet of paper who sat around and waited.  Looking at her now, he knows that she’s completely different, and he loves that about her. He loves that she looks happy and comfortable in her own skin.  He knows that she struggles with being who she is, with resigning what she did in her past to who she is now, but he even loves that about her, too.

Eventually, Natasha starts to calm down, but Clint can’t tear his eyes away. She lifts her hand up to her eyes to wipe them, and she looks over at him, still laughing though much softer now. “What?”

“You know I love you?” he asks.  Suddenly, she stops laughing all together, and she just stares at him, her own eyes huge.  She doesn’t say anything for a long time, making Clint feel like maybe he shouldn’t have spoken, but he finds himself refusing to back down from it.

“Clint,” she says, and she gives another soft laugh to try to diffuse the tension. “Clint.”

She dives straight into her chicken, and she talks the rest of the night. Clint knows she’s trying to distract the both of them from what he said to her, but he doesn’t try to stop her. He just lets her and doesn’t ask her anything about it.  If she’d wanted to say it back she would have, he figures.  She didn’t say it, so now he has to pretend like he doesn’t feel the deep gaping hole in his chest that’s just getting bigger and bigger.

* * *

 Natasha doesn’t tell him for a long time that she loves him back, but she does finally say it.  They’re in the shower after a long, hard mission, and she hands him the soap so he can scrub the blood off his body.  She hands him the soap, and she doesn’t look at him, but she says it softly. At first, Clint thinks he’s misheard her, but he knows he heard her correctly when she looks up at him, and her face is the most open he’s ever seen it.

They don’t tell each other very often what they feel about each other, but they say it enough.  When Loki gets a hold of Clint, though, he finds himself trapped inside his own mind. He screams and screams in the back of his brain, and he wishes that he’d told Natasha more how much he really does love her.  He wants to tell her he’s in love with her, but now he’s just sure he’ll ever get the chance.

It doesn’t surprise him when he finds out that Natasha was the one who brought him back.  She always is. She always is the one to come after him and keep him safe.  Her face is the first thing he sees in the Infirmary, and he’s ok with that. She’s careful not to touch him, and he knows she’s doing it for his sake.  Little does she know that he wants to hold her and hold her and hold her.

When New York is over, he leaves with a massive headache, a few broken ribs, and a giant gash in his calf.  He’s given time off, and he retreats to his apartment.  Natasha, of course, comes with him.  He doesn’t want her to because all he can see in his mind’s eye is himself killing her over and over again, but she insists on coming. She insists on staying with him, and there isn’t a damn thing he can do to tell her to stay away.

“I lost you once,” she says softly. “I’m not doing that again.”

* * *

 Fury gives them time off, and they take that time to rebuild. New York rebuilds itself, and they rebuild each other.  They spend their days holed up in Clint’s apartment because that’s where he feels safest. Clint has nightmares, and there are times when he lashes out at her.  He doesn’t recognize himself most days, and he wonders how she can stay. Once, he breaks down. He breaks down when he’s waiting for the shower to heat up.  Everything comes pouring in at once, and there’s nothing he can do but sob and let it out. He doesn’t remember Natasha coming in, but she comes in, and when he’s done choking on himself, he feels her hands wrapped around his head as she comforts him.

Shortly after that day, Natasha gets a new assignment, and she has to leave. So she does.  She promises him she’ll come back, and he believes her, and he’s quiet when she leaves.  He’s doing ok these days, doing well enough to the point where he feels like he doesn’t _need_ her there with him, even though he wants her there.  While she’s gone, he starts doing things to keep his head straight.  He wants to stay on track, stay sharp.  He hasn’t been cleared to go back into the field, so he does what he does best—he trains.

Natasha’s gone for a long time, long enough to the point where Clint’s cleared to go back, and she still isn’t there.  No one can tell him anything about her mission, and he doesn’t go try to find information.  He simply accepts it despite the fact that he has questions.  He always has questions.

He gets a three-month long mission, and he takes it. He has to go undercover, and he does. But while he’s undercover, he meets a woman named Laura.  He doesn’t particularly like her at first—she’s just kind of there.  She’s a teacher at a school in town, and she runs into him at the local coffee shop.  Laura’s nice, and she’s very friendly towards him, sometimes to the point where Clint wonders if she’s being a little bit more than nice.

Clint checks in with his handler, and that’s how he learns that Natasha’s back. She isn’t quite the same, but she’s back.  Hill won’t say anything more than that no matter how much Clint asks.  He even threatens to ditch the mission and come straight back, but he doesn’t.  All Hill says is that Natasha’s back, and if he comes back, too, that’ll ruin everything. So he doesn’t go back. He stays.

The three months turn into six months.  And then six months turn into nine.  Hill still handles him, and she gives him updates on Natasha whenever he calls in, but she doesn’t sound quite so enthused to give them anymore. Clint doesn’t know what happens, but at some point, he stops asking for updates.  He stops asking about Natasha, and he starts asking Laura if she wants to get dinner.

Clint doesn’t know how it happens.  He doesn’t know anything.  All he knows is that one minute he’s having dinner with Laura for the first time, and the next he’s standing in front of a bunch of people who think they’re his friends, and he’s saying, “I do.”  How did this happen? How did he get here? He doesn’t know the answers to his own questions, but he doesn’t stop to think about them because he’s happy.

Laura’s pregnant before long, and his happiness increases. She knows the truth about who he is—she knows everything about him.  She knows about his childhood and his sadness.  She knows about his life.  But she doesn’t know about Natasha.  She doesn’t know that at all.  But despite everything, despite the fact that she doesn’t know about Natasha, she’s like a breath of fresh air for him.  When Clint’s with Laura, he’s safe from his life and the dangers surrounding it.  He never has to worry about someone coming to kill her for her past in her sleep.  Laura’s hands are clean and gentle, and they don’t run red with blood.  She’s the first person who’s never killed anyone to touch Clint.

He has to remain undercover for the next year, but finally, the mission is over. He gets what he came for, but he realizes he doesn’t want to leave, so he tells Maria that he’s not coming back. He tells her that he’s still an agent, but he’s changed.  She says good.

* * *

Clint needs to bring the rest of his stuff to his new home, and that means he has to go back to take care of that.  He kisses Laura, and he kisses his baby, and he heads out the door. He doesn’t know why he thinks this will be easy because it’s anything but.  Natasha is a new person, Maria said.  Natasha changed.  Natasha went through things.

The first time he sees Natasha, the first time he’s seen her in years, he’s in the familiar halls of SHIELD’s Headquarters.  SHIELD looks the same, and so does she. She looks like the same regular Natasha she always has, but if he looks closely, she looks a little older. Other than that, she’s the same. She stares at him with huge green eyes as she watches him approach her in the hall.  Clint doesn’t know why he thought this would be easy. When he sees Natasha for the first time, his heart goes still, and his pulse grows thick.

“You’re back,” he says to her.

“So are you.” She stares at him with unreadable eyes. He knows she’s unhappy.

“I came to get my stuff.”

“So I heard.”

“Hill told me you had it moved here to storage.”

“I did.”

“I didn’t know I was going to see you.”

Natasha looks at him like she wants to say something, but she looks away. Clint waits for her to speak again, but she doesn’t.  Instead, she just kind of shakes her head and starts walking away.  What happened?  How did this happen?  How did he get here? Clint will wait for her forever, he thinks.  He will. He just can’t.

On the drive back to his wife and his baby, he thinks about Natasha and the last time he saw her.  He doesn’t know how this happened.  He doesn’t know how things ended up this way.  He loves Natasha.  Has always loved Natasha. But now he’s married, and he has a child who’s part-him, and he doesn’t know how he went from loving Natasha to being a father.

When he gets home, it’s almost a relief to be back, but for the first time, Clint wonders if his life is a trap.

* * *

Natasha is still his partner for most assignments.  They don’t talk when they’re in the hotel, and they barely look at each other.  Clint thinks this might be best, but goddamn, does it hurt.  It hurts to look at her, to be around her…God.  It just hurts.

“What’s the weather like outside?” he asks.

“Cold. You’ll want to dress warm,” Natasha replies.  Her voice isn’t short, but it also isn’t encouraging.

“Bring your scarf?” he asks her.

“Yeah.” As if to prove a point, she rifles through her suitcase, but she slows when she realizes she doesn’t have it.  Quietly, Clint takes his out of his suitcase and hands it to her.

“Here.”

She looks at it and then shakes her head. “No.”

“Take it, Nat.”

Her eyes turn sharp when she looks at him—she looks at him as if her gaze can cut him through. “No.”

“Dammit, can you not be so fucking stubborn?” he snaps.  It comes from deep inside him, a place of frustration he can’t identify, but it comes, and it’s there, and Natasha’s looking furious as she grabs the scarf from him.

“Fine,” she snaps back.  She winds it around her neck glares fiercely at him. “Are you happy, Clint? Are you fucking happy?”

“No,” he answers.  One short word. Natasha pauses, but her face doesn’t change. For a second, he sees familiar emotion take place, but it’s gone as soon as it’s there.  Once again, she’s wearing her blank, emotionless face, and that’s how Clint knows he’s lost her.

It hits him that she’d once been afraid of losing him again, but now he thinks he’s the one who’s lost her. Is it possible for only one person to lose the other, or do you lose each other simultaneously? The question rises to the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t ask it.  Instead, he bites his tongue physically and metaphorically, and he eases away from her.

“You should take time off,” she says. “I heard you’re going to be a father for a second time.  You should take time away.”

Clint knows her.  He knows what she’s like when she’s angry and when she’s sad.  He knows what she looks like and how she sounds when she’s happy. But she’s not angry or sad anymore. She’s hurt.  And if anything’s going to kill him, it’s going to be that.

“I probably should,” he agrees just for the sake of agreeing.

“Good.”

* * *

Clint loses sight of Natasha for the next few months, and he doesn’t pay much attention to the drift in their relationship because if he does, he’ll feel that gaping hole in his chest again.  He can’t focus on that when he has Laura and two children. He needs to focus on taking care of them.  So when the world falls apart, and Tony’s greatest creation turns away from him, he has to keep his family safe. He winds up taking them to the Safe House, and he winds up allowing the rest of the Avengers to come back with him.

It’s there that he sees Natasha look at Banner with those eyes. She’s no longer the wild, young woman she was when he first met her.  She’s older, and she knows what she’s doing.  She makes sure she’s in full control over herself, and it hits him that maybe that’s why she’s doing this with Banner.  Maybe this is about having control and taking control back in her life. Her time with him…that wasn’t really about control.  Not like this. Or so he wonders.

“So. Banner,” he says to her later that night.

“So. Your family,” she counters. He goes quiet. After a few seconds, Natasha quietly laughs. “You’re so predictable.”

“Thanks, Natasha,” he says.  His voice is terse as he says her name.  There’s tension, and he doesn’t know why.  Natasha studies him for a few moments, and then she crosses towards him. Clint’s half-afraid that she’s going to hit him, but when she raises her hand and places it on his face, her touch is gentle.  She’s anything but tender with him, much like the way she was so long ago. Emotion passes over her face, and then she frowns just a little bit. “Natasha.”

“I love you,” she says, her words barely audible. “I do.”

“Natasha—“

“But—“ Her green eyes flick down to his mouth and then back up to his eyes. She’s quiet for a very long time, her eyes reading his entire face in her silence. Finally, she swallows. “Yeah.”

“Natasha…”

She removes her hand from his face and shakes her head, telling him she doesn’t want him to say anything else. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Clint. Get some sleep.”

When Clint sees Natasha look at Banner the next day, her face isn’t blank. She isn’t an empty page. When she looks at Banner, he sees the Natasha he knew a long time ago flickering over her face, and he has to look away. She doesn’t look at him like that anymore, and he has no reason to regret it.  He has a wife and children.  He loves them—he truly does.

But he also loves Natasha.  He loves her, too.  And when he asks himself how this happened, how his life turned into this, he has no idea. He thinks he never will.


End file.
